Stocks end quarter on bullish note

The bull, which looked winded in recent trading sessions, finished the first quarter with a strong sprint to the finish line.

The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average on Monday rallied 134.60 points, or 0.8%, to end March at 16,457.66.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index posted a gain of 0.8% to 1872.34, helping the benchmark index extend its string of quarterly gains to five, dating back to the first quarter of 2013. Still, it was the market’s most lackluster quarterly performance since the fourth quarter of 2012, when the S&P 500 slid 1%.

Here are the final 2014 first-quarter returns for the major U.S. stock indexes, ranked from best to worst.